If you like vertical scrolling shooters, you're sure to have heard something about Star Soldier R. The game is all about taking on huge numbers of enemies in levels as you slowly get upgrades and aim to have the best score possible. It's fast and fun, which is all that a shoot them up should aim for.

Hudson Soft, the developer, thought of Star Soldier R as the perfect candidate for the Wii Ware when the service for the Nintendo Wii gaming console launched in Japan. The game does not rely on the player progressing through levels, as previous installments of the series, but rather on the high score mechanic.

There are only two levels that ship with the game and a round of shooting can only last either 2 or 5 minutes. This is how much the player has to get as big a score as possible, a score that is then matched up against the ones the other players have managed.

Now Star Soldier R is also officially, as stated by Hudson Soft, going to be released for the North American version of Wii Ware. The developers think that American players will be just as interested as their Japanese counterparts to try and stay at the top of the overall leaderboards for the game.

Hudson says that they plan on implementing complex leaderboards that let players compare with their peers in the same city, the same region or look up and see where they stand globally. There's no word on whether the game will get any additional levels as time goes by or whether new play modes will be introduced.

In Japan, the game is selling through Wii Ware at a rate of 800 Wii points, which is the equivalent of 8 dollars. The actual North American price will be seen as the game debuts on Wii Ware when the service launches on May 12.